San Francisco Unified School District Board - Regular Meeting

Guy, can I have another? This one, I think it doesn't work.

Uh-huh.

Hold on a second.

Translators, you can go ahead. If you are talking, make sure you're unmuted.

Thank you. Thank you. SFUSD is offering interpretation services in Spanish and Cantonese. If you need interpretation, please dial the following phone number. After dialing, please introduce a PIN number. This message will be repeated in Spanish and Cantonese. Thank you.

I think I heard

Interpretation, um, it was just very quiet in the boardroom, but I think members. Of the public or online could hear it just fine. If not, if you can please put it into the chat. So we're aware if that is not the case. Um, okay. Hello everyone, thank you for your patience. Thank you for being here. Um, welcome to members of the public to the regular meeting of the board of education at the same school unified school district. Um, our public comment period today lasts for 1 hour or until 745 PM. 745 capture, we look forward to hearing from the public before we conduct board business. Our goal is to conduct board business in an efficient, effective and accessible manner during reasonable hours. We aim to respect staff, family and community time by ensuring a move to purpose as soon as possible. Each participant may speak for up to one minute. Staff will thank the participant at the one minute mark. At one minute and five seconds, I've asked Clerk Chang to please turn off the mic and transition to the next speaker. I ask members of the public to please respect that one minute limit so that we can hear from as many speakers as possible. I encourage speakers who are speaking on the same topic to collaborate and combine their comments so that the board can hear all viewpoints during our limited time. Please also note that the board accepts written public comments via email to boardoffice at sfusd.edu. We will hear first from students in-person, then members of the general public in-person, beginning with agenda items, then moving to non-agenda items. Regardless of whether in-person public comment is complete, we will save 15 minutes for remote public comment starting at 7.30 p.m., taking commenters in the same order as in-person. To members of the public, on your right, you'll see signs that outline expectations for public comment and meeting conduct. We ask that all members of the public model, the kind of tone language and behavior that we expect to see hope to see from our young people respecting different viewpoints and allowing for all members of the public public to participate. As a reminder board rules in California law do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during the public comment time. If appropriate, the superintendent will ask that staff follow up with speakers.

Thank you, President Kim. We will start with students. We have James Benarofe, and apologies if I mispronounce your name, Jaina Kumar.

Is it on? Good evening board members. My name is James Beniroff and I'm an incoming senior. I know this city has been working on the student literacy rate for years and I've read the progress report. I've built something I'd like to offer the district for free. It's a news website called Smalltalk at smalltalk.news. It takes real current events and writes them at three reading levels, ages 5 to 9, 10 to 12, and 13 and up. The same story written so a third grader and a seventh grader can each understand it. I built it because kids read more when they care about what they're reading. A bison charging a man in Yellowstone, a rocket about to crash into the moon. That's what gets a nine year old to finish an article. And because learning how the world works, history, geography, and why things happen the way they do shouldn't wait until high school. The students in our classrooms right now are the ones who will be voting on these decisions. The website is completely free, no subscription, no license, and no accounts. The student just needs a link and nothing else. I'm not asking for funding or contract. I'm just asking the district to consider it as a free supplemental reading resource. Thank you for your time.

Janna, are you still here? Okay.

There we go. Okay. Hi, my name is Janna Kumar and I'm a rising high school senior. And for the past 14 months, I've been working on an independent study exploring how civic education upholds democracy. And I've interviewed dozens of students across Bay Area high schools and found that civic discourse is a universal struggle. Now our current California framework, especially in our Principles of American Democracy class for seniors, excels at teaching civic knowledge and the mechanics of government. But I think knowledge alone isn't enough. As students, like myself, approach voting age, we need to be able to put that knowledge into practice. And so I urge the board to think about ways that we can reinvigorate civic education by focusing more on civic discourse. And that could be done in a variety of different ways, whether by integrating more discourse templates into our existing class models or providing more faculty and teacher training on how to facilitate dialogue. But it's imperative that we think about this because civic discourse really is the heart of democracy.

Thank you to both James and Jana. We will, if there are no more students, we will move on to agenda items. And I have one that is Lawrence Lee.

Good evening everybody. Welcome back to school. President Kim, commissioners, superintendents too, staff. My name is Lawrence Lee. I'm in San Francisco Unified School District alumnus, and I'm also the audit chair of the Citizens Bond Oversight Committee. I want to raise attention to item F14, which is the wording for the bond issuance, which is coming up soon for $270 million. There is a section that's written that I think needs a strong correction. We on the Audit Committee are the people that do look through the audit and talk to the auditors. What we don't do is we don't set the terms of the audit. And this is the wording that's in the official statement that goes to the bondholders, and this is where it needs to be accurate. So please pull this item, F14, and have the staff correct it, because we want to make sure that we come through really clear with what we actually do. And this will help us all with making sure that the money comes in good and the money spent well. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We will move on to non-agenda items. I will call five names at a time and you can line up behind the podium against the wall.

we have roberto guzman sarah kirsten john lizovsky anya schwanz irene sorry miss chang um we can for all the galileo folks who are here we can call them all up at once and i just asked them to state their name before they speak yeah so they'll just come all at once If there are non Galileo community members, if they can just come up for something great.

Okay, so we have Roberto Guzman, Sarah and Kirsten.

Good evening, my name is Roberto Guzman Rivera, and I have three children in South Guadeloupe Elementary. Tonight, I want to recognize Commissioner Matt Alexander, Jamie Hooley, and Para Gupta for voting no and the LCAP. Whether people agree or disagree with that vote, I believe it demonstrates that the ELCA deserves careful scrutiny, not just approval. The ELCA pays the district's commitment to improving outcomes for our students, particularly English learners, students with disability, foster youth, and low-income students. It should include clear accountability, measurable goals, and confidence that the promised investment will be fully implemented. As a parent leader, I appreciate elected officials who are willing to ask difficult questions and hold the district accountable before approving one of its most important plans. I know both can be an invitation to strengthen the plan so that it better reflects the voices of families and the need of our students. I encourage all commissioners to continue working together and ensure the LCAP is not a document that meets state requirements only. Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Sarah and I'm also an SF USD alum. I represent a group called Tech in Check. We are a growing group of educators, administrators, family members, community members. We are in over 45 public schools at this point. And I'm going to read a few comments from some of our members. Parent number one. I don't believe it's fair that students in the public school system who cannot afford an alternative become the tech industry's monetization strategy. I don't want to see other children and families in SF who are part of the public school system serving as experimentation fodder and revenue for tech companies. The tech obsession in schools only hurts children, especially those whose families are less well positioned to understand and fight against the corporate interests pushing tech on their children. Thank you.

Hi, I'm a parent asking SFUSD to establish a screen time policy rooted in independent research. Technology in schools can follow a similar model as driving. We don't give a 15-year-old car keys and say, use your best judgment and drive responsibly. We have a learner's permit, required practice restrictions, and clear rules. Freedom increases as young people develop skills and judgment. Classroom tech use deserves the same approach. Students need skills before screens because their brains, attention, socialization, and self-regulation are still developing. Just as driving privileges increase from supervised learning to independent driving, so too should technology in school. Telling families and teachers to be tech-balanced without defining limits leaves everyone guessing. Technology should serve learning, never drive it. many california districts including san mateo are moving toward intentional technology i'm asking sfusd to do the same thank you thank you very much will the galileo academy contingent go ahead and come up

John Lasowski, Galeo Academy. On May 4th, a student violently assaulted PE teacher Matt Mendoza at Galeo Academy. Since that time, Matt has been placed on administrative leave for defending himself from this unprovoked attack. Recently, SFUSD has told Matt that he'll be placed on one week of unpaid leave and then transferred to another school. SFUSD's message to students considering violence against teachers is clear. If you want to get rid of a member of staff you don't like, assault them. We'll respond by transferring them to another school, and you can tell your friends how you got rid of a teacher. As a teacher at Galileo, which has a history of unsafe working conditions, including two guns on campus last year, the precedent being set with this treatment of Matt makes me scared to come to work. If a violent student decides to assault me, is the district legal department going to blame me to put in administrative leave and then an unpaid suspension to send me to another school. Matt is one of the most committed student-centered educators at Galileo, and his leadership of the ASB has been nothing short of extraordinary. In every major school spirit event of the last several years, Matt Mendoza's tireless dedication to students has been at the center. Thank you. Bring him back to Galileo.

Hi, my name is Amanda Donahue. I hope you got my email earlier. I've been an ELD teacher at Galileo for 10 years now. On May 4th, my colleague Matthew Mendoza was assaulted by a student on our campus. He was struck three times before trying to defend himself. The initial attack was caught on video on a student's cell phone. Matt now faces a five-day suspension without pay and an involuntary transfer to another school. According to our contract, item 21.5, the item 21.5 states that a teacher may use reasonable force to protect him or herself or others from an attack or injury. However, the district is claiming that Mack became the aggressor when he tried to defend himself after the assault. i ask you what do you suggest we do when a kid comes to us with a punch and another punch and another punch are we supposed to just play dead the involuntary transfer of a teacher after an assault by a student sends a message that violence against teachers is tolerated and that we as teachers are expendable to the district i have a petition of 90 galileo community members helping to help us write this wrong thank you

My name is Manoti Devay. I've been a high school teacher with SFUSD for almost 15 years and we have all chosen to make sacrifices to educate underserved youth. Time with family, our physical and mental health, we've tolerated pink slips, salary freezes and snafus, a dilapidated and unsafe work environment such as non-functional elevators, And now we are asked to sacrifice our physical and emotional safety at a school where dysfunctional security cameras is the least of our problems. Removing Galileo teacher Matthew Mendoza, a highly esteemed colleague who sought to protect his own body from a physical attack by a student, sends a clear and dangerous message to students that they can get away with physically assaulting a teacher without suffering any consequences.

My name is Anya Schwanes and I teach the biotech pathway at Galileo. I've been teaching since 2002. I've never seen anything like this happen at a school that I worked at. And it didn't happen just out of the blue. I too want you to reinstate Matt Mendoza, and I think you're going to receive petitions and all sorts of documentation as to exactly where all the things went wrong. But it's part of a larger pattern. For a long time, there has been neglect of our safety. For a long time, there has been a willful disregard of our comments to the district. And teachers know, I think everybody here knows, that there's been all sorts of shenanigans going on that should not have happened. For example, our principal was removed right after spring break. And we were never told why. She was just gone. And we didn't have our full security complement. And you've already heard, our security cameras don't work. So this didn't happen in isolation. It's what happens when you don't secure a school.

Oh, I'm just trying to make a name for myself here. My name is Jacqueline Peters. I also teach with Matt Mendoza. I had written a letter, so I'm just going to read you part of it because I didn't know exactly who to send it to. But expect it in your email boxes soon. I just want to say that I've worked with Mr. Mendoza for eight years, and I've noticed what an upstanding person and teacher he is. I am flabbergasted that anyone would question his integrity. He's worked hard at making a name for himself as a teacher of repute, coaching and teaching students in a way that allows them to be engaged and learn. He has spoken up for those who have been treated unfairly, including himself. At one point, he just... not ignore teachable moments to escape. He uses his position with honor and alacrity. From what I understand, this is not an isolated incident. Actually, I know of another colleague that Who this happened with and he was reinstated finding that everything that was done was totally against policy bring matt back.

hi my name is timothy juan i'm a special ed teacher at galileo high school and i'm here to support uh bringing back matt mendoza he's a pe teacher he's a sports coach a club coach he's the asb director he does great work at galileo he's a vital member of the community stand-up guy it's very confusing why he's being treated this way for all for everything he's done for the school in the community for the students we're asking that he be reinstated and Placed back to Galileo immediately.

Hi, my name is Marlou Sistermans. I'm a math teacher at Galileo. I'm here today to ask you to reinstate Matt Mendoza in his position at Galileo. Matt is an esteemed member of our faculty who has shown dedication to our students as a PE teacher, ASB advisor, and coach. But this isn't just about Mr. Mendoza. Matt was violently assaulted by a student. By transferring him, you send the message to teachers that our workplace safety doesn't matter. You show us that we are disposable. Transferring teachers who are victims of assault penalizes the teachers who dedicate their lives to teaching our most vulnerable students, such as those with special needs and those with a history of trauma. These are precisely the students who need the most consistent and experienced educators. Board, I urge you for once to take the side of teachers. Trust our professional expertise in handling the nuanced challenges of our job. Do the right thing. Please bring Matt back.

Good evening. My name is Eric Schatzkin. I'm the librarian at Galileo. I'm here to talk about Matt Mendoza and reinstating him. As a librarian, I interact with a large crosscut of students across the entire school, from his soccer team to students in ASB. Galileo has a robust and vibrant culture of student participation and engagement, and Matt has woven himself into the fabric that makes that happen. He's a man of high character, and he works with students to empower them to approach the world with respect, compassion, and dignity. And it is a grave injustice that Matt is not being treated the same way by the district. Galileo is better with Matt Mendoza. He wants to come back. Please reinstate him.

Hi, this is one of the ASL interpreters. We need a function to be able to spotlight ourselves since the other interpreter who is interpreting is not on the screen and we're not able to switch ourselves. Please, thank you.

Hi, my name is Claudia Lifson. I'm a special educator at Galileo High School. At the end of last school year, my colleague Matthew Mendoza was assaulted by a student. I can speak firsthand that Mr. Mendoza has always gone above and beyond for our special education population. While I understand the district must carefully consider difficult situations, I hope Mr. Mendoza's years of dedication, professionalism, and commitment to our students are given equal consideration. Losing him would be a tremendous loss for Galileo. We are asking the board to reinstate Matt Mendoza to his position at Galileo and to ensure that all teachers and staff are protected when we come to work. Thank you.

Good evening board. My name is Vicki Young. I'm a social studies teacher at Galileo. This is my eighteenth year at Galileo. I've seen a gradual decline in student accountability and safety on campus since COVID, since the COVID years. And this is something that Mr. Mendoza and I have commiserated on on numerous occasions. It has been a concern of his as well as many other staff members. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that we've had continuous turnover of administration. We haven't had the proper support and staff members and security that we needed on campus. This is not the way I would like to open up a school year, which is showing up at a board meeting at 6.30 to talk about saving a colleague. This should not even be happening. Campus safety is an ongoing issue, not just at our campus, I'm sure at other campuses. I used to be an SFUSD student. I am now a teacher. I'm also a parent. of a student at one of the elementary schools. Please send a clear message that safety is a priority for the schools, not just for the staff, but for the parents and for the students. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Kathleen Norton. I'm an ELD teacher at Galileo. Matt is an important leader at Galileo, and removing him from the school will hurt the whole school community. His commitment to supporting ASB in the leadership class is what enables our school culture to thrive and respond to the changing needs of our student population. We've become the largest newcomer school, and removing Matt does a huge disservice to our vulnerable newcomer students because he cares about them and makes sure to represent them in our community. Not only that, but this response to Mr. Mendoza's incident communicates to our newly arrived students that actions don't have logical or reasonable consequences and that school is not a safe place for anyone when it should be a safe place for everyone. And it's the district's responsibility to make that reality. I'm asking the board to reinstate Matt Mendoza to his rightful position at Galileo and to ensure that our school is a safe environment for teachers and staff.

Hello, good evening everyone. My name is Karla Rodriguez and I've been a Galileo for a total of nine years, four as a student and five as a staff member. I'm here to speak in support of Matt Mendoza. Mr. Mendoza is a crucial member of our community and a role model for students, especially for immigrant students. But besides that, I want to address the bigger issue and the message that a transfer will send to our school community. I also want to encourage everyone here today to think about how our Latinx students will feel about losing one of the few Latino teachers in our school, especially in today's political climate. With that being said, we're asking the board to reinstate Matt Mendoza to his position at Galileo. Thank you.

My name is David Braun. I'm the department head for PE. So I work closely with Matt for eight years. I've been in the district now for 10. In that 10 years, I've not once been trained with a PD. We have these ridiculous trainings we have to go through. Not once have I been told what should I do if I'm attacked by a student, right? Not once. I even worked at Willie Brown and they never told me what to do. And I was attacked several times there. Oh, we could have caught this on camera. No, the district doesn't pay to update our cameras, so the cameras on that side of campus don't work. Oh, how about the T10 that could have stopped us? Oh, we don't have enough T10s on campus. And Galileo, as you know, is two city blocks, and we have no T10s on that side of campus, no one. There was no one there to protect him. He was punched violently in the back of the head then tried to get away and was attacked even more what is he supposed to do like come on we have to do better than this this is ridiculous i already wrote a letter about how much i think of him i'm actually tearing up thinking about how much i care about him and how amazing of a teacher he is at galileo not just as a teacher but as the asb the coach everything it's we gotta do better this is ridiculous

Good evening. My name is Kevin Fanning, and I teach ELD at Galileo High School. I'm here to speak out against the involuntary transfer of Matt Mendoza. Matt is an integral and respected member of the Galileo community, and he was a victim of an assault last year. and now he is the victim of the district the district's action sends a message that teachers are not supported and it sends a message to students that violence is a feasible way to get what you want so please write this wrong

Good evening. My name is Steven Cadet and I'm here on behalf of Matt Mendoza and the rest of the people at Galaweo High School talking about the vision supported schools, strong schools. What is the vision again? On that website it says you are taking bold action to support our educators. Why do you say that? Shame. Can a school be excellent without safety? Can a school be excellent without justice? Your legacy could be remembered for support of Matt Mendoza and the rest of the individuals at Galileo High School. Could be. Show us that's your vision. By the way, that read app. Thank you. The app. What was it called again? Small talk. Small talk.

I have one more card. It's Maureen Brown.

Everyone has said everything that I wanted to say about Matt Mendoza. But what I also wanted to bring up is that this is not an isolated incident in terms of safety at Galileo. It's also not an isolated incident of unjust cause for transfers and suspensions of very qualified teachers who sadly have all left now to join. the very lucky san mateo unified school district marin unified school district and palo alto private schools to get our teachers who were suspended when they were assaulted by students and the students were allowed to remain on campus at the expense of the teacher maintaining their positions so we're losing qualified educators our students have the right to have qualified staff not only safety

Thank you to all those who spoke. President Kim, that concludes the in-person public comment. Shall we move to virtual? Okay. We will be moving to the virtual public comment. We will start with students first. So if you're not a student, please take your hands down. I'll give you a minute for the students to raise your hands. And while they do that, just a reminder, it is one minute. We will, in case there are issues to hear the timer, we will let you know that your one minute is up. Okay. And it looks like there are no students on virtual to speak, so I will open it up to agenda items only. And if you can reserve your comments for the agenda items, then we will move to non agenda items. Okay, we have. Okay, let's just start. We'll start with walking Delgado.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead.

Wonderful, thank you. I have been an educator for the last four years at Galileo High School, and I'm speaking to advocate for Matt Mendoza, his reinstatement at Galileo, specifically high school. I also would like to publicly just thank Matt Mendoza for all of his efforts over the years, supporting our ASB as a teacher, supporting our diverse communities, building our soccer program, building our golf program, building an incredible community amongst the entire student population through leading young people in their leadership roles with asb uh i'd also just like to thank matt mendoza publicly for for coaching me as an educator for advising me as an educator uh i can't say enough and i'm sure and i also just want to thank all of my uh fellow galileo uh colleagues uh over the years for speaking on his behalf as well so i just want to say thank you and again thank you matt for everything for all of your efforts over the years really appreciate you thank you

Gretchen Talon.

Okay. Hi, good evening. Thank you. I have a third grader at Francis Scott Key. My goal tonight is to begin the conversation of removing one-to-one tech from our elementary schools. I'm also a part of the tech in check community. To date, 62 public school districts across the country have enacted policy to eliminate one-to-one screens in all TK to second grades, as well as creating guidelines of appropriate screen time in grades three to five. My hope is that Unified will follow this as well. The science is in. Gen Z is less cognitively capable than previous generations despite its unprecedented access to technology. Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized tests than the previous one. It's never happened. Let that sink in. One-to-one devices are putting our children at risk of brain damage. The data supports this. Let's not allow our students to be beta testers for big tech or AI. Let's help our teachers to use the greatest teaching tools at their disposal, empathy and connection. Thank you. Thank you.

Lee Schimmel? Lee Schimmel, are you there?

Can you hear me now?

Hello? Okay, great. I'm Lee Schimmel. I'm an English teacher at Galileo High School. I'm also speaking in support of Matthew Mendoza. He's been an indispensable asset to our school as an ASB coordinator and coach. He's cultivated student leaders and spearheaded important school events that have given our students a greater sense of belonging, and losing him is a major blow to our community and a grave injustice that needs to be rectified. As a trans teacher, I just see a pattern of teachers from marginalized communities being victimized or harassed and not getting support. And to see this happening to a teacher of color is very upsetting and frustrating to me. I've worked with Matt personally, and I know that he is a great teacher who has inspired and really helped so many students. So I really want to just add my voice to advocating for him being reinstated. Thank you.

Thank you. integrated schools. integrated schools, you are allowed to proceed. Okay. If you want to speak again, I guess, let me know. We have a few minutes for anyone else who would like to speak non agenda items as well. um integrated schools you're the last one left if you want to speak you are unmuted otherwise we will close virtual okay that we have uh concluded our virtual public comment

Thank you. Thank you to members of the public, um, especially our students for, uh, joining us tonight to share your experience, perspectives and. Products, um, as a reminder board rules of California law, do not allow us to respond to comments or attempt to answer questions during public comment time. But we appreciate you taking the time to be with us here today in person and virtually. The superintendent and her team are tasked with providing a draft of each agenda 12 days in advance for board members to review. Once that draft agenda is made public on our website, board members have made a commitment to submit clarifying tactical questions and staff have made a commitment to respond to those questions in advance of each board meeting. This Q&A doc is linked into each board agenda on board docs today in item E2. We invite the public to review those questions and answers alongside our discussion today. Additionally, to create more space focused on student outcomes, we'll be moving most items to our consent calendar and identifying only our highest priority agenda items to discuss. Board members are reminded not to restate questions answered by staff in advance, but instead bring strategic questions that allow us to better understand our progress towards our goals and the underlying strategies so that we can be better informed in our decision making and partner with the superintendent as we hold her accountable. Item D, report from closed session. I'll just announce that depending on our timing of our meeting today, the board may resume closed session after today's open session. I do have the readout for today's closed session. However, the board did meet in closed session to discuss the following matters. In anticipated litigation, student EC versus SFUSD and student AU versus SFUSD, the board by a vote of seven ayes gave direction to the general counsel. For existing litigation student RS first SF usd age case number. 202 60606. I need this. 31. Uh, and a matter of student W. W. versus case number 2, 0, 2, 6, 0, 5, 0, 5, 7, 1, the board by a vote of 7 eyes and gave direction to the general council. The board of education is committed to effective school board governance. uh that centers student learning based on community input the board has adopted our vision values goals and guardrails in order to increase the portion of board meeting time you spend on student outcomes every other meeting is a monitoring workshop our approach to governance calls on this board to empower the superintendent to take full ownership of the strategies used to reach these goals within the guardrail set by the board As we continue our governance framework, the Board will continue to adopt new systems and routines and policies aimed at improving student outcomes. We encourage the public to follow along at sfusd.edu slash governance. Items E, land acknowledgement. We, the San Francisco Board of Education, acknowledge that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. As indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. As guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland, and we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramaytush community, and by affirming their sovereign rights as First Peoples. I'll move to item four, student delegate report. I would like to welcome our two new student delegates, and I'll actually leave it to you both to introduce yourselves before you provide your student delegate report.

Hi, my name is nelly I am a rising senior at George Washington high school and i'm super excited to be the district elected student delegate. And i'm really proud to be in this role, because I believe that the people that benefit the most from education policies are students and I would love to i'm so excited for the opportunity to connect students and the board, thank you.

Okay. Hi, my name is Anna Nguyen. I am an incoming senior at Lincoln High School, and I did apologize in advance. I came late because I didn't know there was a meeting until 5.50. But I'm super excited to be part of this role as well. I went to the pre-Ks in SFUSD. I'm currently a high schooler now, and I am super happy to be able to advocate for students in marginalized backgrounds and to be able to advocate for equitable resources at SFUSD school site.

Uh, we'll move to item 5 superintendent report.

Thank you president Kim and welcome Anna and Nellie. Very excited to have you all. Um, it's always wonderful to have our students, uh, provide feedback and advocacy and policy advice to us because at the end of the day, it is about the students. Um, so thank you so much. Um, I'm gonna make sure that we pull up our slides. So we're trying something new here. We're going to add a little video to see if you all are share in our excitement. And the big excitement is that next week on Monday, August 17th, We go back to school. It's going to be first day of school at SFUSD. Very, very exciting. We've spent a lot of time over the last several weeks now getting ready for school and making sure that we work with all of our site leaders as well as educators to train them and to make sure that the school year is going to be fantastic. And I am positive that the school year will be fantastic. Let's see. So this is one of our trainings on, I think a couple of weeks ago now, we welcomed back 400 of our site leaders. These are principals, assistant principals, as well as central office leaders back from summer for those who took summer break and to be ready for school. This was over at Marina Middle School. It was really, really wonderful. Thank you so much to President Kim. and Commissioner Fisher for being there. Commissioner Fisher, you were there for the whole day. She actually went in and out of some of our sessions and provided very, very good feedback on what to do and what we can double down on. So thank you so much. um for that um the our administrators also had the opportunity to hear from each other and to learn from each other um how some of their colleagues some of our colleagues are moving the needle on our vision values goals and guardrails um so we're we want to continue to do this throughout the school year so that we can just highlight and spotlight all the good news that's happening in our district and all the really great work that's happening in our school and school community Next slide, please. And we're going to hope and pray that this is going to work. They're not. So opening schools and first aid schools is not just our administrators and our educators, but it's also our fantastic facilities and operation team. So I had the opportunity to go and visit some of our custodians who are getting our schools ready for next Monday. So you can take a quick peek at a video that we did.

For the school year.

Fantastic.

and i just want to ensure that when the school is straight the kids have an environment so they can speak with you and i try to understand that's what's amazing uh how hard our custodians work every day but definitely those few weeks leading up to school a lot of moving equipment in and out and in an average

So when we get to a high school, they'll take you around.

It's a lot. It's an amazing workforce that comes together every summer to get our classrooms ready for students.

We always have to make sure that they know that I was part of it. Make sure that it's still there. Yeah, it should work.

but again it speaks to just how diverse and how needed our students are because we all are doing all the pre-cleaning obviously getting ready for school but then also during school time we are making sure that the space is clean for the kids and for our staff as well out of all the great work that our custodians do and all of our support staff do every school day.

Um, I was also able to, uh, welcome our student nutrition staff back and, um, on Friday and our clerks the other day. Um, so we're really, really excited. And I think this Friday I'll be welcoming, um, our para educators back. Um, um, speaking of schools and opening schools is something, are we good? Okay, thank you. We were actually able to do a wonderful ribbon cutting ceremony at the newest school in the district, the Mission Bay School. This school was truly a dream decades in the making. As many of you know, we've opened this is our first public school that we opened in the last 11 years. And this was really because we made a promise to this growing neighborhood that as the neighborhood was growing, we were going to make sure that there was a public school that was available for that neighborhood to access. And I just want to thank Principal Monette Benitez, who is the founding principal of the school. Yes. Yay. pta who came together very quickly to support the event all of our parents and families and students who are choosing this school president kim again for being there and speaking there commissioner ray and commissioner fisher were there the mayor was there our city department partners were there the district's bond office as well as some of our other district employees and staff Just want to do a special thank you to UCSF for offering the land to us so that we can build. And then of course, all of our neighborhood committees and community members who rallied together to make sure that there was a school there for our students. And I look forward to seeing many, many amazing things that will come out of this wonderful school. Speaking of this wonderful school, over the summer, our African American Achievement and Leadership Initiative was able to host the inaugural Freedom School Summer Program and Black Star Rising Summer Program at the school. It was fantastic. You had learning happening everywhere on every single floor. We had advanced algebra and geometry happening up on the fourth floor. We had literacy programs and dancing and singing happening on the first and second floors. Students were truly, truly enjoying themselves and at the same time learning and preparing for school. So I am really excited that this is going to continue throughout the school year, as well as a key benchmark for us, a key institution for us during the summertime. And speaking of students, we are really, really proud that we're moving right into the first week of school. And already more than 3,500 students were offered a spot right off the wait list. And we strongly encourage any families who are still looking for a spot to please contact our enrollment center, which is right here at 555. Franklin or you can go online to learn more about where you are on the waitlist and please respond when you are offered a spot off the waitlist. And speaking of all the wonderful operation folks in the district, I want to say happy 80th anniversary to the National School Lunch Program. SFUSD Student Nutrition Services provides nutritionally balanced meals to students at all of our early education and TK-12 schools free of charge. And I had the opportunity to taste test a few meal options just a couple of days ago, and they are delicious. So I strongly encourage students to please try the different meals. Let us know. Yes, let us know. I got my two favorites. And so I would love to compare notes. Let me know what you guys like. Okay, great. And then some important dates. Yes, first day of school, Monday, August 17th. Please be there. And then also just please make sure you check our website and read your principal's newsletters about all the paperwork and all the information that you would need to prepare for the first day of school you can definitely go on our website www.sfusd.edu to learn more thank you again and thank you to all of our staff who have worked really really hard over the last weeks and definitely this week to set up your classrooms to make sure that our schools and our facilities are going to be ready and welcoming to all of our students. So I look forward to seeing everyone on Monday in school. And if I don't get to your school, I will definitely see you throughout the school year. So thank you.

Thank you. Very brief board leadership report. I just want to welcome SFUSD family students to the new school year and commissioners encourage you to join us on the first day of school if you are available. Okay, moving to item F consent calendar, um, just to acknowledge, uh, for commissioners, uh, at the request of staff, we have moved the consent, uh, now ongoing to be at the top of the agenda. So that staff who and. Books members of the public who are waiting to. here whether or not we their consent has passed um it will make it easier for them to be able to excuse themselves at an appropriate hour so I just want to let you all know moving forward consent will now come after the introductory items and with that said I will step out

President Kim has a standing recusal from the consent calendar due to his employment with city and county of San Francisco, which is a frequent contractor with SF USD in order to avoid any appearance of a conflict. Superintendent Sue, do you have any changes to the consent calendar?

Based on the Uh, so based on the, um, item that we were just made aware of, um, F 14, I would like to pull that off the consent agenda and, um, move it to a discussion item so that we can then correct, uh, verbally correct the, the misnomer of the, uh, committee name. Um, so that we can then take a vote on that. Um, so that we're, so it's just be, it will be clearer.

Thank you so with all items. Except for F 14 I move approval of the consent calendar is there a second second. Thank you, could we have a roll call vote, please.

Commissioner Alexander yes. Commissioner Fisher yes Commissioner Gupta yes Vice President Hewling yes Commissioner Wray yes Commissioner Weisman Ward yes um and then okay that that concludes the

Thank you and we can retrieve our president. And to clarify, we'll be moving, um, item F, 14 to be a standalone. Action item rather than a discussion item. So, we have 1 present can we have 1 additional action item consent item F, 14 has been moved to the action calendar. Yeah.

um okay an additional so that will be an additional action item item g2 yeah okay all right moving to uh item or g action items item one uh the next item on the agenda is 268-11 sp2 board of education governance calendar for school year 26 to 28. can I have a motion in a second

With gratitude to Matt Fitzsimmons for his able assistance in putting this together over the summer, I'm happy to finally be moving a two-year governance calendar.

With additional gratitude to Matt Fitzsimmons, I second.

It has been properly moved and seconded the sorry, with additional worship, there's probably moved and seconded that the board approve item 268 dash 11 SP to Board of Education governance calendar for 2628. And I will pass it to Dr. Sue.

Yes, and I have equal gratitude and excitement and appreciation to Matt Fitzsimmons. I'm excited to propose that the board adopt the two-year governance calendar in front of you, outlining the dates for the board's regular and progress monitoring meetings for school year 26-27, as well as 27-28. As we turn to adopt a more strategic approach to governance planning, we also collaborated with board leadership over the summer to develop a supplemental calendar that outlines additional planned board meetings. Based on the board's ongoing feedback and guidance, we will be refining this calendar to reflect major decision updates, recommendations from ad hoc committees on progress monitoring and community engagement, which will be further refined in the upcoming weeks. and then setting regular dates in the fall and spring for advisories to present their recommendations. Again, I want to thank board leadership and the entire team for working with us on finalizing this calendar and, of course, for your partnership. Thank you.

Um, I want to acknowledge commissioner, so there's 2 items that you may have seen separated out. This is a little different than what we've done before. So there's the governance calendar that lays out the, um, as legally required. Um, all of our, the cadence and dates of our regular and monitoring meetings. Sorry, did you just. No. um the supplemental calendar uh is the calendar that's a little bit more detailed you'll see on there uh special meetings that have been added uh in addition to more information regarding the content of those meetings um i want to acknowledge the special meetings the way that um and correct me if i'm wrong here um the way that we are navigating the special meetings is that those reflect the the maximum number of meetings that we would want to have to be able to adequately cover the content that staff are preparing to bring in front of us regarding our major decisions and so that may still change that will still be at the call of the chair of the board you'll get adequate information and timely notice for those meetings as they come up I just wanted to acknowledge that slight difference there in the the meeting structure any questions about that

I would just flag for commissioners, for the public, and for, I suppose, candidates for the Board of Education that there are a number of additional meetings on the supplemental working draft governance calendar. Because of the significance of the major decisions that are before the board, we are essentially having 3 to 4 board meetings every single month with study sessions, retreats, special meetings to hear from advisory committees. So. assuming that the governance calendar passed I'd ask the board office to put those on all of the all of those meetings on the commissioner's calendars and for commissioners to be aware that even though the governance calendar says there's not a meeting until two weeks that there's actually a study session on Tuesday next week okay any questions comments yes

So I with gratitude to to the team in general for putting this together, both leadership, Superintendent Hongmei and sounds like Mr. Fitzsimmons for for finally getting something to us. I really appreciate it. I'm curious, you know, Superintendent, if you can go through the next two years specifically as it relates to major decisions, I think that would be helpful. I mean, this is helpful to just sort of get a roadmap, but I think it's also helpful to the public as well as for all of us to understand how you foresee kind of the cadence of meetings and how we use these meetings, particularly if, as Vice President Hewling has indicated, we will have additional meetings to, in broad brushstroke terms, come to the major decisions that, you know, I think we just started the conversations around in June.

Yeah, so, um, if commissioners and the public goes, uh, can click into 1 of the, um, the supplemental calendar item, um, supplemental calendar within this item, you'll start seeing how we're envisioning. Um. the cadence of the meetings where we're hoping to start infusing study sessions into and between some of our meetings, particularly some of the major meetings where we're going to be coming to the board for approvals of items. The idea around the study session is to really seek guidance from the board around things like student assignment policy, how we envision us rolling out language pathways within the district How do we envision maximizing neighborhood schools or using and leveraging some of our larger schools for perhaps citywide programs? So we're going to be engaging with this board and with our larger community pretty soon around some of the key data that we're looking at, some of the big demographics that we're seeing from our demographers, and sharing and quite frankly asking for guidance from the board on helping us narrow the path towards the major decisions. of note in October we're going to be sharing back to the board some of the major areas that we're hearing from the board regarding or after the study sessions so that by April of 2027 we're going to share with the board a proposal for a student assignment change. And we're gonna be seeking approval from the board at that point in time. So it's gonna be, I fully acknowledge it's a very aggressive calendar. It will require all of us to spend a lot of time digging into the data, having some really deep conversations about what will it mean for our students? What will it mean for our families to look at this data to make meaning from this data, and to pivot and change, change our student assignment process, change how we fill our schools, change perhaps how we use our school buildings. But those are all big questions and big conversations that we as a governance team will be engaging in all of this year.

Sorry, can I ask you to just repeat the data that vote on the anticipated vote on the student assignment system in April of 27.

One one follow up superintendent, so I see the October and the April dates in here around student assignment policies when it comes to say school portfolio or school mergers are there dates that we can already put in here.

um. Yeah, so that's definitely something that we are going to have to grapple with as a governance team. As we start looking at the data, as we start trying to make decisions around how we will assign students to schools, we're going to start very quickly see that perhaps there are some neighborhoods in our city that won't have enough students for the number of schools we currently have in those neighborhoods. and we as a body will have to figure out what to do with that um and then we're going to also be grappled with um the fact that there are some parts of our neighborhood where we have a lot of children and we've got tiny little schools so what are we going to do about that so the all of that to say that as we start pushing on the student assignment work or we're going to also start seeing how it impacts our school portfolio as well and we're going to get to a place where we're going to have to make some very difficult decisions and have some conversations about what would it mean for us to use and program facilities perhaps convert a school that isn't fully enrolled to have a language pathway at that school, or to perhaps repurpose the usage of that school for something else. But that is going to be a decision that we are going to work on together. It is not scheduled out yet because it is going to, in my mind, be a very organic process where it's going to come out through these conversations.

I'll I'll just name my discomfort with that because you know the the board had indicated a timeline of 2 years, and we saw that pushed out to 4. And so I would much rather have dates that we are aiming for that. You know, we may change. We can, you know, we understand this is a living document. So that we're all on the same page rather than potentially, you know, us not again. I I just don't want a repeat of what had happened, and then having that conversation maybe at the end of these two years to me. That would be frankly unacceptable and dereliction of duty as a board member for myself.

And Commissioner group. I'll just add to that. One of the conversations we've been having is is I mean, there is a natural decision point, which is the enrollment fair that we know is taking place in October. And so for any portfolio changes or programmatic changes that take place that impact whether families choose a school for the following year should be made by the October at the latest, right? So that the enrollment fair can reflect that. That reminds me, actually, and this is why we have a conversation about this. Even mental note for leadership team. Even the recommended portfolio changes, for example, the Kate Mandarin School, we should we should add to the calendar because we will need to discuss that at a meeting prior to the October enrollment fair for the October. So it's a good it's a good call out. Thank you.

But that that's a perfect example of a portfolio change. Because we have committed to our community that number 1, we're going to open a K8 Mandarin school and number 2, we will share with the community the short term site, the temporary site of that school, and then go through a community engagement process to identify the long term site for that school. um and that in and of itself is a portfolio change that is necessary and required and yes i i appreciate uh commissioner gupta calling this a living a living document because it is it's going to have to make some we're going to have to change as we um move through the process

I am really excited to see all this outlined publicly, transparently. I think it gives us another accountability path with the public. So thank you very much for this. And thank you for everyone who's worked on it. My concern specifically you know and looking at some of these dates October 13 vote to confirm enrollment policy direction April 13 vote on updated student assignment system, particularly with the enrollment policy direction with our governance. framework our job as a board is to reflect the values of the Community and and. It's, this does not, this timeline, that's two months from now. I don't see where community engagement can be authentically done in two months. So I know there are plans to distill down the community engagement and the information we already have, but I'm also, and this is to you, Dr. Hsu, but also to you, President Kim, because community engagement needs to be done by the board as well as by district leadership. So what are our plans to make sure that we've really done our robust community engagement to make sure that we are prepared to meet our governance mandates in relationship to these states?

I can start and then hand it off to Homme or hand it off back to President Kim. But the October date is very intentional because it's right after the study sessions with the board. What we really want to get from the board are directions. so that we can just figure out directionality where we want to move? Are we really going to double down on predictability and choice as the two main guardrails as we move forward in building the student assignment policy? Or do we want to double down on another guardrail? So we want to hear from the board there your your direction. And then after we receive that we will then do some very, very deep community engagement over the next several months to then land at a recommendation in April. But homage, you want to speak a little bit more about that?

Thank you, Superintendent. Good evening, Commissioners. That's a really important component of this entire work stream is to really be able to be in partnership with the community because fundamentally the impacts of some of these major decisions, first of all, has to be done so in partnership with the community to reflect the values. But when it comes to feasibility of implementation, success of implementation, we have to be able to adopt a systemic approach um and a lot of what we are looking at in in addition to being able to synthesize digest the existing data from community engagement efforts previously is really building out a structure and a plan that takes into account district-wide community engagement as part of the fabric of how we go about engaging school site communities through existing structures such as school site councils, such as community schools, such as the PTAs that exist at each school site. But also thinking about what are some of the leadership structures and infrastructures that we can tap into to engage community partners, site administrators, site leaders, central administrators in order to really You know, really be able to integrate the impacts of these policy making you know mechanics into as part of the planning process in terms of. being able to gather and synthesize and integrate feedback and input. So we are looking at ways to implement the inclusive decision making framework per Guardrail 1. It is part of the work that we're doing internally as the systems building work for community engagement and also as part of the work that we are doing externally, not just with the public um with parents uh but also i think with city agencies as well as community uh partners as well and commissioner fisher i i um

You know, in some ways, I actually this has been an ongoing conversation among leadership around around that October, the significance and what that means. Like, what is the ask for October? And I'll just I'll just reiterate what I shared in leadership. You know, I think in some ways the board has already given guidance around the direction that we want to go down. back in October, right? That guidance was around our major decisions, one around portfolio that we address the reality of our 14,000 empty seats by talking about our programs and our footprint of our schools. And then on the other hand, talking about how we fill those seats through our enrollment, moving away from lottery for all and closer to a zone-based model understanding like there are dimensions of that that we need to unpack and understand what our options are and so to a certain extent that direction has been given right so like there's that that is that's a conversation we've already had as a board um so we may actually even get there faster right that was one of the questions that we had as a as leadership was we may actually not even like I don't I we haven't seen the content for October so I don't know but we may actually just get there faster by nature of the board already having given kind of a perspective around the direction that we're going down um I think staff are understandably meaningfully trying to meet the framework of the inclusive decision making process. But again, I think what we have iterated reiterated is, you know, if, in some ways, like we have exhausted that conversation in some ways, and so we are, if we can get there faster, we're happy to. And so what that looks like over the next few kind of study sessions, we haven't seen yet. But that's been a conversation part of the conversation we've been having.

Thank you. And I appreciate that clarification. That was all very helpful context and information. And as I feel like the resident historian on the board, I also want to caution us against repeating the sins of the past. Not official historian, I'm not. you know i'm the old lady who's been around through many many rounds of community engagement okay so um and one of the one of the authors of the the 2018 joint advisory committee response to the previous resolution cautioning against moving to zones until we had equitable resources distributed through and we spent an entire year on an ad hoc on student assignment system trying to work out this very complicated issue with incredible outside resources demographers researchers very very smart people before us have tried to tackle this problem and failed so i want to be cautious here and i want to i want to approach this with a little bit of humility um and and make sure that our expectations i mean honestly i don't know that we know what community really wants now um because what we tried to put together before wasn't it we couldn't meet community demands so that's part of why i keep pushing back on our role as a board to not make assumptions and make sure we understand do or ask ourselves do we really understand what's important to the community right now especially after the failed RAI process like I'm I'm not sure that we have done sufficient Community engagement frankly to understand whether or not we know what the public wants in order to give direction at this point that's all I'm saying

Thank you. And I apologize. We didn't have the timer going, but I'm sure that was within three minutes.

Oh, no, it was well over. I had a minute and a half left and Irene was kind enough to stop the timer instead of buzzing me. So I apologize. I went well over three minutes with that.

Sorry, then that was my fault for not noticing that the timer was at zero. So thank you for your comment, Commissioner Ray.

Thank you, President Kim. I also just want to share my appreciation for Mr. Fitzsimmons work on this calendar, which has been a difficult thing for all of us for quite some time. And we're very, very glad to see it. I have some specific questions, particularly, but I wanted to come at first, I guess that I share Commissioner Gupta's concerns about frankly, being extremely loosey goosey and letting this drag out indefinitely. I think one of the things that I feel confident for saying for many years as a parent advocate and then as a board member, there is very widespread agreement among folks in terms of dissatisfaction with the lottery. There's never going to be a perfect solution. We're not going to achieve perfection. But I think our greater trap is to continue to do functionally nothing and continue to let people down when they expect us to be making a decision given how many people agree that it's an issue. So I share his concerns. I would rather see dates set and then modifications made as needed rather than just leaving things to see what happens. I think that leads us to the path of doing nothing. ultimately um and to further student enrollment loss and less of confidence as a result my uh questions relate uh also around timeline and if you could provide an update for us and for the public on in particular the Mandarin immersion process for community engagement and uh like sort of a clear clear understanding for the public and the many families out there who would like to know Will there be community engagement on the short-term location? If not, what is the timeline for the decision-making on that? And similarly, with regard to community engagement on the long-term location, I understand that will occur, but what timeline can they expect for that? Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Ray, and thank you also to Commissioner Ray for joining us in all of our public community meetings with the amazing Leanna Seto, who is the consultant who is working on this project. And as Leanna shared in the last community meeting, we are going to be able to share the location for the short-term site. before the enrollment fair, so latest in October, and then also share the options for the long-term site and then engage our community. My commitment is that we're not going to identify a long-term site without making sure that, at a minimum, the community is aware of it because, again, speaking to what Commissioner Fisher was referring to, we cannot repeat the ills of the past. We need to know that and remind ourselves that we need to engage our communities as we are making changes to their community. So again, we will be sharing the short-term location site latest by October, and then we will share the list of potential long-term sites shortly after that. And, oh, shoot, I was going to say something else, and I completely forgot.

The timing, perhaps the timing of when community engagement will occur?

Well, so the short-term site will, again, be shared before October of this year, and then the school will start in that short-term site. There will be a year-long process where the, not year-long engagement process, but several months process to identify the long-term site. Um, but that will happen, um, within this school year for then the following year. Um, what I actually wanted to mention was just that, um, for those of you who are familiar with our, the first public Chinese immersion school in the country, Alice Fong Yu, um, when we started that school, we also had a short term location for that school. and that short term location for that school was at West portal. And students started out at West portal while we were in the process of building out the now Alice Fong U permanent site. So once our students were once the West portal, the Alice Fong U site was done, then we moved all of our West portal sites students over. So it's similar in that process in that vein. And again, I commit to making sure that we have community engagement at potential long-term sites?

Is there a rough timeframe for when that will occur for the long-term sites?

I think that's a little bit out of the purview of the governance calendar itself. So I, it's a great question though. And so if we can just follow up with that. Yeah. Yeah. But the community engagement plan isn't actually on the governance calendar. So if we can just follow up, I think that'd be really helpful.

Yeah. Sure.

Commissioner Alexander um thank you um I am really excited about this governance calendar um which maybe is weird but I am um I think that it um the reason it I like it a lot and especially in terms of this community engagement question is because there are so many meetings which means Well, it means I'm going to get to see my friends on the school board every Tuesday, which is great. But more importantly, it means that our meetings aren't going to go until 11, 12 o'clock at night. And instead, we're going to have more of them at times when people can come and they're focused on particular topics so people can choose. This is the one that I'm interested in and what I have energy for and what I want to be involved in. So I just think this is responsible in terms of governance and transparency and accountability to the public. I cannot make next week's meeting because I already had scheduled time away. So I apologize to miss you all there. But the other ones I can commit to. So I'm excited about that. I really want to thank Superintendent Sue and her team. I mean, I've now been on the board with three superintendents. And two of them completely failed to address the student enrollment system, which is one of the major pain points that has been facing SFUSD for years. And was passed by a new policy was passed by the board in 2019, 2020. And so I love this also to see that we have dates for votes October, April again, and I appreciate the flexibility, actually, as we were discussing that if it's clear earlier, we can move faster. If it's not clear and we need more time, we can take a little more time. And so I think those two checkpoints make a lot of sense. Um, with some flexibility based on the feedback from boarding community. And so I just thank you for an interview for your leadership and for finally making this happen. I think it's just frankly, it's one of the things that I was most embarrassed about being on the board of the fact that we haven't been able to, um, complete this promise that we made to the voters and also to the people of San Francisco to really fix this broken enrollment system. And we're finally doing it. And so I agree with my colleague, Commissioner Fischer, that there's complexities, but I think this lays out a timeline and roadmap. The other thing that's on here that I'm really excited about is the goal monitoring sessions and the second best ad hoc committee last year developed some recommendations. And so we're now going to have we're going to see them implemented in our goal monitoring sessions. And I think I would really encourage members of the public who care about strategic resource alignment toward our academic goals to come on August 25th. September 22nd and October 27th for the next three goal monitoring sessions where we're really going to hopefully step up our game around that process as well. So thank you.

I'll keep this short. You can probably just even put on 90 seconds. Good.

I never use my full three minutes.

I also just want to extend gratitude. Thank you for pulling this together. It's clearly an enormous amount of work. And there's a lot of sequencing and thinking about sort of the order. And it feels a lot, these conversations are like chicken and egg conversations. So I do appreciate the complexity. I guess in response, Commissioner Alexander, I just want to make one small, I think one small point, which is I think that the... The many meetings are lovely because we can see each other's faces and I do think it's good in terms of transparency, but I want to be make sure that we're not. We're not conflating transparency for engagement, because as we know this, these meetings are not, this is not community engagement. We can't engage back with the public. And so transparency, yes, because we're having the conversations in public, but that I just want to make sure that the engagement piece remains separate. And that means we are out in community, not folks coming here. Look at that. That was like 45 seconds. I win.

I do want to appreciate and acknowledge what Commissioner Fisher and Commissioner Weisman-Ward said about community engagement. Those things are not necessarily on our governance calendar, but I share the concern and commitment to make sure that even as we provide preliminary direction in October, that the board is able to make up our minds and give our direction informed by our communities and voters and schools and students and families and educators. So I think that that is a really important piece of this to start early and especially also around things like citing schools i really one thing i like about this governance calendar is that it is largely a work plan and i know kind of as we've been a district in crisis uh in the past and we're trying to move away from that and to not be kind of responding crisis to crisis and so part of that is setting our deadlines out in advance and being able to work backward from them so that we can actually deliver on and achieve um the promises that we've made to our community around finally changing the enrollment system and also making hard decisions around our school portfolio and doing the things that are necessary to strengthen our school communities and some school communities that are currently under resourced. So I would say that one thing that is missing from this governance calendar is a few deadlines. Not the actual governance calendar, but the supplemental calendar. We've discussed a few times making sure that deadlines are on here. So last day to bring to the board a vote on any changes to school portfolio, for example, because that is a major decision, even if it's not legally required. And so we probably should Add that, for example, I believe the last meeting. This year before the enrollment. Fair is, uh, that's a regular meeting is Tuesday, October 13th. Um, and same for next year if there are indeed. School portfolio changes that follow from any enrollment changes that are made. That should be on there and I think we've discussed in the past as well, like, last day to purchase new curriculum so that it comes in time for it to arrive and. Teachers to receive proper professional development on implementing it, um, or, um, you know. things like that that impact, for example, staffing decisions before the March layoff deadline, things like that. And so maybe we can continue to just refine a few of those work plan issues in the supplemental calendar, especially as things come more into focus.

Y'all have too many questions. And to move us on debate is not closing the motion to approve 268 dash 11 SP to board of education governance calendar for school year 2628 can we do a roll call please.

Commissioner Alexander yes Commissioner Fisher yes Commissioner gupta yes Vice President healing yes Commissioner Ray yes Commissioner Weissman Ward yes President Kim yes. Student delegate.

Oh, yes.

Student delegate.

Yes.

Thank you. Um, okay, moving to item G, 2, uh, the next item on the, on the agenda is the consent calendar item 14 that was pulled from consent title 268 dash 11. 1. I'm going to read this only once. Resolution approving the form of and authorizing the execution and delivery of an official statement not to exceed $270 million of general obligation bonds and not to exceed $235 million of general obligation refunding bonds of the San Francisco Unified School District and authorizing the execution of necessary documents related to said bonds. Can I have a motion and a second?

So moved.

Second.

It has been properly moved and seconded that the board approved 268-11-SP1. Dr. Hsu?

Yes, so we were informed that there was some clerical, there were some errors in the way we put together this item. I'm going to ask our Deputy Superintendent of Business Services, Chris Fontbenitez, to share an update version of this item.

So the board is approving us to form the POS, the official statement, which is required by the Securities and Exchange Commission for us to sell bonds, which is what this is authorizing, as well as do some refunding of past bonds for taxpayer savings. You're approving us to form. Those of you that work in the law see it's a very regulated form, and actually it needs lawyer approval, so I can't commit to changes here, but I will change the title and the auditing statement for the CBAC group.

Commissioner Fischer.

I just want to, and I think this is a question more for legal counsel than anyone, because this was properly motioned, it was included on the consent calendar as an action item. So it was pulled, but I just want to make sure that we don't have any Brown Act noticing issues with pulling it from consent and then voting on it tonight. I just want to dot our I's, cross our T's, make sure that procedurally we're okay to do this. Yes, we are. Thank you.

Did we want to read into the record specific language changes that are being made?

Again, it's to form. I actually have to have the lawyers approve final technical changes. So they have, they have to agree to the language changes. So I will tell them what the intent of the changes, which I believe was a statement of the local name of the bond oversight committee versus the statutory language and to change that. They review the audit. They don't set the audit, which was my understanding from the email.

I think I think what we can do is just say what those changes are and the board approved and then the lawyers make the changes afterwards.

Which is what just happened right okay great son of confirm.

So can can I maybe then. Make a. move an amendment to this matter and read the change language.

I think what Council just said was that it's not necessary because staff just need the changes.

I don't just for the record, I can say there are 2 changes. 1 is the name so that the attorneys will make the change to the official name, or they may add language such as also known as the 2nd change is that, um, that the committee will review not audit. I think it was just the language changed.

The committee's responsibility is to review the required at annual statutory audit of the bond program not to set the audit terms that set by the state.

Yes, there's so there's current language that says the district has established a citizens oversight committee. that's referred to at least two times we'd like to correct that to say the district has established a citizens bond oversight committee and then there is additional language that explicitly says. The district utilizes an auditor to perform annual bond performance and expenditure audits to ensure the bond funds are expended in conformity with the authorized purposes and quote audit objectives set by the citizens oversight committee. We'd like to change that language to audit objection audit objectives reviewed by the citizens bond oversight committee. So it's a pretty minor technical term.

I can just uh just wanting to clarify um as I understand the committee not only doesn't set the audit objectives they're not consulted as to the audit objectives they do review the audit if that makes sense that's my understanding you're correct and that's the statutory obligation so we'll change the language to be in conformity with that

Okay, debate and discussion is not close on the motion to approve this item. Roll call vote. Please.

Commissioner Alexander yes. Commissioner Fisher yes. Commissioner Gupta yes. Vice President healing. Yes, commissioner Ray. Yes, commissioner Weissman war. Yes. President Kim.

Yes.

Student delegate new in. Yes, student delegate folks men.

Yes, thank you, and I would also like to add in relation to this that the credit agencies have upgraded districts credit for the first time in four years.

Oh, what is it to tell.

Thank you. Moving to item H1 board of education mid year self evaluation AJ are you on. zoom I am. Hello, I will pass it on to you to facilitate this portion.

So to actually be relatively brief this evening, each of you already completed your homework and conducted your own individual self evaluations. All of that has been put together into a combined document to describe a collective score. And each of you identified what are some key things that you want, that you see as deficits that you'd like to see the board work on. But fortunately, most of those items are already addressed in the governance calendar that you've just adopted. And so just a thing about governance calendars, the way that we recommend these things work is that the administration take a stab at developing them on your behalf and adding in items that they have knowledge about, but that once you adopt it, it is your calendar and the board and only the board can go back and make modifications to it. And so think of it as an important part of your governance work that when you want to conduct major activities, that this is an appropriate place to slot those in. There are a few things that are not well indicated on there that you all mentioned in your self evaluation around community outreach and engagement work in particular. I appreciate the comment that was made earlier. that greater transparency is not synonymous with greater outreach and engagement. And so I think you've accomplished significant steps forward in the transparency that some of you mentioned back in March when you did this last. I'll be working with your leadership to identify ways to look at how you can add more community outreach and engagement work into your calendar as well. One of the other major issues that came up in your self-evaluation that you all filled out was items around listening, items around when major decisions were going to be addressed, items around alignment between your goals and LCAP. Let's see, and items around use of staff time. All of these are items that are either already present on your governance calendar or that I will be bringing to you all after this evening, be bringing back to your board leadership recommendations for specific changes you can make to your governance calendar to try to add in some of those things. And so expect that to be brought back to you. So let me pause there just as a quick overview of the homework you all did before this meeting and the impact on your self-evaluation of the governance calendar. uh what questions uh concerns did you all have again the next step for me is to come back to you all with a few more recommended edits to your governance calendar to be responsive to some of the concerns you lifted up in your self evaluations what other questions uh comments concerns do you have for me regarding your self-evaluation All right.

Commissioner Ray has a comment.

Hi, AJ. Thank you so much again for being here with us tonight and for your guidance. I have a question around the community engagement that will need to be done with regard to our VVGG. And we have, as I'm sure you recall, moved our our goals and guardrails out for an additional year because of the district's inability to support the community engagement process. This has made our five years into six years, but has also meant that we've fallen out of compliance, if you want to put it that way, with our intent to do this sort of community engagement every three years or so, every 36 months. So I'm wondering if you have guidance or recommendations for us on Just to help us get back on track with that and what type of district support you think would be helpful for us to have. Thank you.

And so definitely this was an issue that multiple of you brought up in your comments from your self evaluations. That's why I'm bringing it up as just a consensus point that you all surfaced. And I will bring back firm recommendations for your uh to your board officers other than i can bring that back to you all you all also had some amount of committee work that speaks to this a little bit and so i also want to make sure that some of that gets folded in uh but you speak to the elephant in the room is that when you all made a decision to push back the timeline on your goals and guardrails you also effectively push back the timeline on PRE-DETERMINED SET OF COMMUNITY LISTENING THAT WOULD TAKE PLACE. AND SO WHAT THAT MEANS IS WE'LL JUST NEED TO THINK THROUGH WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT'S APPROPRIATE TO DO IN THE NEAR TERM, RECOGNIZING THAT IN ANOTHER 12 MONTHS FROM NOW, YOU'LL START A MUCH MORE THOROUGH ROUND OF LISTENING IN ADVANCE OF PREPARING FOR YOUR NEXT FIVE-YEAR GOALS AND GUARD RAILS. I've got some ideas of how to try to thread that needle based on the feedback that you all provided on your self evaluations. And so again, give me about a week and I should have all of that back to you all.

Thank you.

And Commissioner Ray, just to acknowledge, I think the last guidance we received from AJ was that we should vote on updated. Before the budget cycle begins that following fiscal year or yes, for that following year. And so you'll see in the 2728 governance calendar, the 1st and 2nd reading in September and October of 2027. Where we vote on new, so we have, we do need to build the plan to engage the community. And that is a part of our responsibility through our board office.

Other questions or reflections as you all think about your own growth and effectiveness as a body? Again, and a lot of this is perfectly timed because a lot of the questions or concerns that I have for you actually are already answered through your governance calendar.

but other questions concerns reflections you have before we transition hi aj this is lisa um thanks i had a hopefully this is not a technical question which you would not be thrilled with but um The communication and collaboration part of our self-eval, in the non-student outcomes focused, where we get, I gave us a zero. Yeah. Two questions. One is like, you don't get to advance to the approaching student outcomes if there was more than six board authorized public meetings. And so I see this tension between this excitement about having all this transparency and all these board meetings. I don't know that we're going to have more than six a month, but just sort of wondering, If we want to be engaging more, not engaging. If we want to be having more public meetings where we can share information transparently, that seems to, at least based on this matrix, not be what you would suggest. And then the other thing, this is definitely a technical question. Any meeting of the board that lasted more than eight hours? And so I put this in my notes, but does that include closed session?

No.

Public. Okay, thank you.

So to your question about transparency, Part of the reason that your monitoring reports are intended to only be five pages long is because a monitoring report that's just intended to give you a sense of how you're performing on a particular indicator that is 500 pages long has a lot more information in it, but that doesn't make it more transparent. It actually makes it less transparent. And so you can flood the zone in ways that actually make a thing less transparent while pretending that you're engaging in transparency theater. And so I certainly would caution you all that I think trying to figure out how to have this balance of when are we having so many meetings per month that we have exhausted the community's capacity to track what their public body is actually doing that's when you've clearly gone too far and so we put in the instrument some outer limits of what that looks like that's what you're referencing um but i would not encourage you to test those outer limits i would encourage you to stay well away from them um and again just because Meeting more than once per month, you could definitely increase the amount of transparency and have specialized meetings about specialized topics, especially when you have projected that out 24 months. I think that does make sense. But you get beyond a certain point and you actually begin to exhaust your community's capacity to keep up with what you're doing. And then the net effect is less transparency. So that's what the instrument is trying to do. warn you against. It gives some pretty distant barriers. I wouldn't get anywhere near that. The other practical matter that you need to run up against is I have no trust in this body to have short meetings. So I hope that having more meetings means that they'll be shorter, but I don't have confidence that that's what that means. And so if you find yourself having 10 meetings a month and they continue to be as voluminous as your meetings are now, then I think you definitely have failed the test of transparency at that point. So that's just something to be mindful of is if you're going to have more of them, I would try to have them more compact. I think the other challenges, if folks have to be at work in the morning and can't stay up until 10 o'clock at night to hang out with y'all, I think that also fails the test of transparency. You all conducting business at midnight does not meet any standard of transparency. And so those are the types of things I would be thinking about. And that's why in the self-evaluation instrument, it addresses both. What is the frequency? What's the number of meetings? But also what is the length of them? Because both of those at the extremes get to the point where it feels like you're trying to hide the

business of the public um by having so much going on that they can't track it thank you aj um the last thing i will say is uh as folks may know we are trying as part of our ad hoc on public engagement and progress monitoring we are holding ourselves to doing our annual vpgg engagements you don't see that on the governance calendar for example but that will likely be a date by which all commissioners will be there and so we still are in the process of actually determining that so it's another example of kind of the evolving landscape of our governance calendar okay it is 8 30. so i gotta go i'll just say i

felt like in my board self-evaluation that we backslid pretty significantly from last year in terms of the number of points that we had and certainly many of those are attributable to Board behavior and like the board meetings and things like that. But I will also say that I think that the board's ability to be student outcomes focused has been negatively impacted by a lack of staffing in the board office. There are many of the, we do not have our own personal staff and this is not our full time job and we're not supposed to be doing staff work. And so, to the extent that we have not had a monitoring calendar to the extent that we have not had. governance trainings, which also negatively could impact our FICMAT audits on governance to the extent we have not hosted public engagement and listening sessions that is due in part to Inability to fill, um. Planned roles in the board office and so with the very aggressive, um. Planning we've been doing toward major decisions. I hope to see the board office appropriately staffed so that the board can actually. have the resources that it needs in order to meet our commitments to being student outcomes focused and to adequately engaging with our community.

Yeah, you all definitely have backslid significantly from the spring. Probably the single biggest source of that is just a dearth of community outreach and engagement. But I think you have a plan for how to get back on track with that. I have said repeatedly to you all and board leadership and to the administration that the nature of the board support at this moment is inconsistent with what is normative across other large urban districts. um and that uh that definitely um my experience has been that has slowed down your ability to get things done that are fairly basic and mundane for other large urban school systems and so i agree with you that solving for that would make it easier for you all to accomplish a lot of the things that are that you've settled yourself with uh with your new governance calendar I would encourage you to make that a priority to resolve that. And this is not new for you all. This was true under the previous administration. And I worked with them at that time to pull together a panel of some of the strongest board support leaders from across the nation. And they had a wonderful conversation with you all. But then there was a lot of uh changes and then nothing came of it uh but we are very willing again to pull together a panel of the finest uh board support teams from across the nation if that would be of benefit to you it would be thank you and we just had this conversation with um in our leadership team meeting so i think uh hopefully staff will follow up with that i'll get to work on that um if there is there anything else

nope it is 8 34. so i'm going to say thank you very much and we'll move on to the next discussion thank you thank you moving to nmh2 update on progress of student superintendent short-term metrics uh before i pass it over to dr sue i just want to acknowledge um given the whirlwind of the end of the school year last year and the summer uh we don't have refreshed short-term metrics for our board and the superintendent and we uh i know well jamie has been in my ear about this and we will um today is an opportunity to hear from the superintendent on

uh her progress towards her short-term metrics i did ask her to speak uh more deeply about uh the organizational chart and leadership structure given that it's the start of the school year so i will pass it over to dr soup thank you president kim and i'll keep my remarks short so that we can go back and finish our business i'm just wanting to share again that in less than a week we will be welcoming welcoming back our students um to schools um i've spent uh the last 20 months uh but definitely the last several weeks speaking with parents educators administrators frontline and central office staff and i certainly feel and you can feel it that there's a shift in the air as we are preparing for the first day of school There is definitely a renewed sense of optimism and hope as we return to what matters the most to us in this district, helping each and every student learn and thrive every single day. I shared a very personal story two weeks ago when I welcomed all of our administrators back to school. And I just want to briefly share some of what I said at that moment in time. To really speak to my why. Why am I here? Why am I doing this work? My family escaped Vietnam at the end of the war when I was barely three years old. We didn't have much growing up, but my parents were very clear Education was our way out, was mine and my brother's way out. And that way out didn't come from a school system. It came from the people that were inside that school system, from the adults. who showed up each and every single day to meet the needs that I, my brothers, and my family had. That is why I've spent the last 30 years of my life working in children, youth, and family services. SFUSD's anti-racist, equity-driven commitment aren't just words to me. They are truly personal. So when I looked around the room and here in the boardroom with our staff, my cabinet that's sitting back there, I see a very fearless and united team here to fulfill that promise to our students and to our families that we are going to work each and every day really, really hard to make sure that every one of our students achieve the promise that we made to them. Every positive outcome that we achieved last year started with the people on the front lines. And I won't pretend that last year was easy because it wasn't. We had a teacher strike. We changed to new curriculum in English and in math. We created new math placement policies that really listened to what families wanted. We put in a new ethnic studies curriculum and We cut $114 million from the budget that resulted in real staffing reductions. That's a lot for our system to carry. It was a lot to ask our entire school community to carry. But throughout all of that, we did. We did prevail. We came together. And we held each other up because the children matter our students mattered that progress that we made was made possible, not because a system came together, but because 9000 individuals came together to support those students to support our families and to support each other. And so from the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you. Thank you for all of that work and for continuing to show up and for continuing to care. Because when we work together, we make real progress. We now have a three-year balanced budget with a healthy reserve. We have multi-year labor agreements with all of our labor partners. really difficult to achieve but we did we have new curricula in place we have stable technology systems ones that will actually pay our staff on time and accurately and we have made significant staffing gains And I'm going to steal James's thunder by saying that this year we're going to start school with 96% fill rates in all classrooms. That is significantly more than where we started in previous years. We are building operations and systems that are really meeting the demands of our students and of our families and of our employees. We're moving in the right direction, but we're not there yet. We've got a lot of work to do. But I'm going to pause and share that part of the work means that I need to have a very strong and robust team that supports me. And so I am really grateful to introduce two of our newest members of my executive team, our Deputy Superintendent of Education Services, John Davis, Jr., Yes. Whose career has expanded, whose career has taken him from Baltimore to DC to Baltimore and now to San Francisco. Yay. And back there, our Associate Superintendent of Human Resources, James Harrell, Dr. James Harrell. Um, who was the former chief human capital officer in San Antonio and before that was over in, um, Oakland unified school district. Um, and of course, we continue to have our deputy superintendent of business services, Chris. Um, thank you so much, particularly because he is the person who balanced the balanced budget for all of us. And then, of course, my chief of staff, Hongmei Peng, who is not new to the executive team, but new to this title. So thank you. And then to round out my executive team, we have our interim general counsel, Komi Vishakan, who is providing a lot of support for us and support for our legal team. Thank you. Um, and I know that, um, throughout the entire district, we have lots of people who are new to the district who are new to certain titles in the district, but who are not new to the core values of our district. We are student centered. We are fearless. We are united. We are social justice and diversity driven. The choices ahead of us, as Commissioner Gupta has already referenced, will be really hard. This year we are going to have to double down and work very closely together. We're going to be making some tough decisions around student assignment redesign. and around our school portfolio. We're going to have to have some fierce conversations about what will it take to increase our enrollment? What would it look like if we changed the boundaries of our school zones? These are going to be difficult conversations, but they're worth it because our students are worth it. We need to have a school district that is going to not only reflect what our students want, but also look like what our communities and our neighborhoods look like. So these are the two values that I have asked our administrators to really hold dear to them, being fearless. I need them to be vulnerable and to be brave. So when we're looking at data that doesn't look good, that hurts our heart when we look at it, we got to be brave. We have to face that data head on and have conversations around what do we need to do to change that data. But at the same time, we need to be united. We cannot do this alone. We have to do this together as a team, a team of leaders, a team of people who really care about each other. And so I'm really excited about this school year moving forward, being fearless and united together with everyone. The board has set some very, very audacious goals for us to achieve. They are our North Star, third grade reading, eighth grade math, college and career readiness. We're talking about third graders. We're talking about moving our current third grade students. Sorry, we're trying to achieve third grade literacy rates at 70% by 2027. We're trying to reach 65% of our eighth graders being proficient in math by 2027. And we're trying to get to 70% of our high schoolers being college and career ready by 2027. Those are really bold and audacious goals. But it's possible because we're moving in the right direction. Already this past year, we are seeing a 2% increase in third grade literacy rates. That means that we're shifting the tides of where we've been before. And for eighth grade math, we are seeing almost a 4% increase in eighth grade math proficiency. That means that it's working. We are focusing our energies. We're supporting our educators. We're supporting our school leaders to provide that comprehensive, warm bear hug that our students and our families need. It doesn't mean that we're done. It doesn't mean that we're not doing that. We are enough, sorry, for all of our students. We still need to face the fact that many of our focal students are not experiencing the same growth and the same outcomes as the rest of our school community. And I have challenged our site leaders, and I will challenge all of us here to continue to stay focused on moving the needle for our African-American students, our Latinx students, our Pacific Islander students, and our homeless students and foster care students and students in special ed, because those are the students who really need our attention and our focus. So for all of that, I want to be clear that that is going to be the big goal and the big work, the heavy lift that we are going to be doing this coming year. Data doesn't just change a district alone, people do. And this year we are going to go really deep on building our people on supporting our educators on supporting our site leaders, so that we can truly own the vision values goals and guardrails that this board has set up for us. It is going to be hard, and I know that will be many, many times, where we will stumble along this path. but at the same time I know it's possible because our students and families deserve it so I'm really proud to be doing this with this board and with our entire school community and I look forward to the first day of school so thank you thank you any Commissioner Commission Commissioner questions or discussion

Hey, um, I will also try to keep this relatively short, but, uh, I wanted to say, uh, thank you 1st for this information and it is. Always a good thing to see progress within the district and our students, uh, achieving higher student outcomes. So that's for them. You mentioned some numbers or increases in third grade literacy rates and eighth grade math rates. It's great to see that progress. And I'm wondering, my first question relates to where folks can find that data. It would be really great to be able to share that with people. um and also you had referenced trying to reach goals by 2027 which would be fantastic but i think unless i'm missing something here that our extension was to 2028 so we extended the goals one year right so uh in that sense there's a little bit of a longer um runway and uh my second my second question is uh around transparency, and that is The board a good while back set short-term metrics. We did that publicly, and they were agendized publicly, and I really appreciate the letter or memo that you wrote to us. It provides a lot of useful information and highlights some of the tremendously positive things that the district has achieved, and I'm very, very grateful for your leadership on. But in terms of like public transparency and actually responding to the metrics, I had asked to provide an update on each of the agreed metrics and We received that in a sense, but the response was that it would only be included in the closed session agenda item. And since these are public metrics, it was publicly agendized. I do find that troubling. I'm not sure why it was only provided in closed session materials and not provided for the public. So if you could respond to that, I would appreciate it. And I hope that you would be able to provide responses to, I mean, on all the short term metrics in public. Thank you.

I would be more than happy to share the short-term metrics publicly. I was not, didn't realize that we were going to share the short-term metrics.

It actually says, in response to my question about providing an update, it says the requested information will be included in the final closed session agenda item B7. Yeah.

So I can just very quickly just share that there were three major areas in the short-term metric. One was budget. And I just shared that we have now a three-year balanced budget with a very healthy reserve. And a part of the 3 year budget has a greater sense of stability because we have multi year labor contracts with all of our labors. The other 1 was operational efficiencies. And the main points and the main targets of operational efficiency was the transition from the previous enterprise system, which is our payroll system, the empower system to a new system, which is frontline and Red Rover. And we have now successfully transitioned to frontline and Red Rover. And I believe the last one.

Staffing.

Staffing. The last one was staffing in terms of my executive, the executive, my executive cabinet. And I am really proud to say that we have a full executive cabinet right now.

Is there is there any reason why it was put in the closed session agenda item then rather than I'm trying to understand why why that was the answer.

Certain personnel documents are confidential. Under the law, items from an individual's personnel file are not public.

I can understand that. I just, in terms of like, it's literally public what our short-term metrics are. There's like a list and a table. So I couldn't understand why there wasn't a response on each of those. I'm not asking for any confidential personnel files.

But, okay. I can share a public version. So if this is, if the will of the board is to have a public version of the short-term metric, I could definitely do that.

Janet Callahan- I mean, I would certainly like that I think that's what's most responsive for an update on it, that would be great if nobody has an objection. Janet Callahan- Sorry, and then my other question had been about the where folks can find the data for the. Janet Callahan- The progress that you had shared about the literacy and math rates.

I mean, I don't know if this satisfies what you're asking, but we will show it during our progress monitoring, right? So the first one is in two weeks, and then the math one will be in September. But I don't know if that's satisfying as quickly as you would want, if I'm catching what you're saying.

I would love to talk about it at the monitoring meetings. Is there any reason we couldn't let people know where to find that beforehand?

I mean, I don't think they're publicly released by the state until later, but there's some information we can share. So when we have this high level data, we can share that. But the depth, I don't think we're able to yet. Yeah, here comes Josh. He'll know better. Yeah.

Thanks for the question. The data isn't final and released by the state until October. And so what we typically share around the October space is the full release of the Smarter Balanced Assessments data once they're validated and cross-checked by the state. We started the practice, given the goals and the guardrails, of releasing just the goal-level data, even preliminary as it was during that time of presentation. So last year, that would have been in the September space when we did goals one, two, and three at the same time. So very similarly, we'll use the same approach of being able to share that data during those progress monitoring sessions for the goal-level data.

Thank you.

Yeah. So, um, I just, I'm very excited that the deputy superintendent of educational services law, we have a permanent deputy superintendent of educational services. Welcome, uh, Mr. Davis. It's wonderful to have you. Uh, there are a few positions that I'm curious about. Welcome interim general counsel as well. I mean, I'm. You know, I am curious about I'd say 4 positions and in total, and I guess 1 will be addressed, uh, uh, to board leadership and the superintendent, which is for our permanent general counsel is, you know, what, what is the plan for that? Um. 2nd would be, um, to Mr Davis. I know there are a couple of positions and. Senior leadership within lead if there's, uh, again, I recognize these are human resource. Issues, but if generally you can speak to that, and then the 3rd would be to, uh. It's paying if if there's anything regarding communication, especially given that, you know, as you heard from earlier in the conversation, 1 of the key challenges that we've. We're contending with both on the board as well as staff side has been around public engagement. Public engagement, so if there are any updates that we might be able to share, that would be fantastic.

Yes, and look at this our associate superintendent to pay jars on their way up to the mic and welcome excited.

Well, I have good news. So this is great. So we have. Started to a process with an external vendor to support our general counsel search. Um, they have been, uh, they were very competitive with other vendors, which was great. And they have a really strong strategy for legal recruitment. Um, they have a depth of expertise that it was really aligned to that market. So very excited for them to be joining. Um, the contract is still working its way, uh, through, um. Through, but we're very excited for them to be joining us soon for that. And we'll be connecting with the board on how to support the general general council search the senior executive director of communications. We have a very strong pool and many people who have had the seat. So we're very thrilled by. that and we'll continue to be starting the interviews um hung may is reaching out to folks tomorrow which she has promised to me prior to this and now there's a public commitment so there's extra pressure for her to do that um so we're excited for that to happen uh the uh director of board affairs has accepted uh the offer and will be joining soon and then the lead appointments

speak to that.

Yep. So coming on board with two assistant superintendents that just timing wise left, I'll be honest, I didn't feel comfortable just quickly making appointments for such high level positions. Accompanying with that, when you look at the principal supervisors and their caseloads, Twenty-two on the elementary end right on the high school end. There's, you know, like, fourteen for one person. This is out of whack to what best practices is across the nation. Especially if you look at research from Wallace, they'll usually talk about between twelve and fifteen schools is what a principal supervisor or Reds should have. And so some of those positions I changed into executive directors, so we would have more of them, and that caseload would be more manageable. In the end, right, the executive directors are super important to principals, and if you've got 22 schools, you can't know your schools the way that you really should, right? I expect executive directors to know teachers, to know the community over time. I think the other positive is we had some really good candidates for the executive directors, and it's always great to promote from within. So we were able to do that in three different situations. And in one situation, we took someone from the outside. And so I think that combination is going to be really strong coming into the year. I'm going to... manage a lot of the high school work directly. And I've asked Dr. Steiner to take on the preschool all the way through eighth grade. And so we're sharing some of those lead responsibilities. I also just want to say that gives me a better kind of proximity to some schools, especially the high schools. And while I'm a little worried about taking those on while also having the other departments, to be quite honest, getting to know the principals is super important to me. Uh, and, you know, I've already started doing that from, you know, when we had our all in, uh, our site leader Institute, but, you know, I'll be able to do that, uh, starting on the 1st day by going through school. So I look forward to being very proximate with our schools and our principles. And that's the structure we're going to roll with right now. It might change by the end of the year. We might have a need another assistant superintendent, but the timing and the need for executive directors is what led us to this spot right now.

thank you for that clarity and kind of the strategy and the intention behind your plans for structuring that that's very clear thank you can I also share that um we have updated our org chart on the website and so members of the public and of course Commissioners can go on our website to see our org chart thank you I know it's almost nine o'clock I know I was going to move it over to you Commissioner Fisher but student delegates are there any questions that you want to ask and get in before we dismiss

Okay. Thank you so much for being here. Congratulations on your first meeting.

Yeah.

We'll see you in two weeks.

Next week at school.

Oh, yeah. We'll see you next week at school. Sorry. Don't forget school. Yes. Thank you. Commissioner Fisher.

Um, thank you for this. Um, I just in response to the concern about making the metrics public. I'm wondering because it is a personnel doc. I mean, as much of it as we can make public. I want to, but I just want to verify that there aren't going to be any HR implications first. So could we check with legal counsel before we make things fully public?

please okay um uh i know we've talked in the past about dashboarding some of this and having some more um data where where do we stand on that and i have a follow-up question um yes we are um my favorite thing to do admire and acquire so we are admiring a lot of other school districts dashboards and we're going to try to see if we can replicate some of that in-house I know that James already has a HR dashboard and we're going to see how we can put together some of our student outcomes dashboard, which I know the RPA already has, but we're going to have to figure out how to make it public facing. So we're working. Yes, I know it's a lot, but I think it is about time. And we need to get that out so that families can have access to real time data.

I mean, to the point of transparent community and real robust community engagement, as AJ mentioned, you also shouldn't have to come to a board meeting to get the data in the context. So I really appreciate that. And to follow up on some of the reports, I appreciate the conversation that we're having here because i think the challenge if you don't know board docs navigating board docs to find some of these presentations or to find this it's a beast and it's i don't think it's a it's not fair and it's completely unaccessible and inequitable to um it's not fair to expect that communities should have to go to board docs pull a q a doc click three items down in order to get to the right data we absolutely need a better way more appendices, whatever. But I encourage you, Superintendent, and your leadership team this year to, as much as having the, we need to do it for compliance, having things on board docs, there's got to be better ways to make this data much more approachable for the public as well in other sections of the website. at school sites whatever the case may be um so I think really that is thinking about how we share this information out in an accessible way is is top of mind for me this year and I'll stop there with a minute left thank you that is helpful input for future metrics if there are other comments or questions about the current metrics that would be helpful um just

not trying to call anyone out just trying to draw in the conversation um and I will remind Commissioners we we do have some items outstanding for uh for closed session that we can only get to if we stop asking questions Yes, Commissioner Hewitt, Vice President Hewitt, sorry.

I will say I'm excited to be hopefully sunsetting this set of short-term metrics a year after they were initially supposed to sunset, but we had a lot of work ahead of us, maybe a bigger hole to dig out of than we realized. I would like to ask for an update just specifically to the. Short term metrics that were adopted 1 is 1 of the superintendent metrics that you committed to is providing training for staff that further implements our student outcomes focused governance model. And that seemed to come up last budget season around concerns around. El Cap and you know the crosswalk about how the budget was actually making investments toward meeting our literacy and math goals in particular. So I wanted to just ask for an update on it. It seemed to me that the the budget process maybe revealed that the student outcomes focus governance model especially around budgeting and things like that had not been fully internalized by district staff and so I wanted to ask what your plan after that was to make sure that we are all in alignment about what how we expect our budget to be a living breathing document of our values and our goals for students

Thank you V.P. Hewling for that question. And I will also say that I was equally surprised that a lot of our school community didn't fully understand what student outcomes focused governance was. And some of our principals didn't know and some of our key central office folks were not even aware And I think it was really illuminating for me that we have a lot to do. We have a lot of training to do. Um, and we started it last year. We have to do more, which is why this year when we started, um, the all admin Institute. the first thing we started with was re-engaging our administrators in the vision, values, goals, and guardrails, and helping some of our site leaders see how their colleagues are, what they're doing to move the needle towards the student outcomes. And we have to do more of that. And I know with John's help, we're going to be doing more of that because of the stuff that he just of the things that he just talked about in terms of providing additional supports to our administrators bringing on additional staff, so that we can have. More learning better learning walks and and really partnering with our PA and curriculum and instruction. But all of those things all circle around how do we fully implement. The vision, though, how do we fully implement the student outcomes focus governance framework, but more importantly, how do we get to achieve the vision values goals and guardrails.

And are we going to look forward to that as part of the budgeting processes here to.

Absolutely, yes we're starting actually I just heard I heard a conversation I overheard a conversation between my executive team here about starting the budgeting process even earlier like. i'm hearing something like September, October here, which is much, much earlier than this district has ever experienced budgeting before.

Thanks. And then my other question is around the metric around establishing stable and effective cabinet leadership structure. One of the things that you committed to is planning for how major initiatives will be owned and managed by district leadership. And so now with our new governance calendar that lays out the major decisions kind of workflow that we can see, Could you share how those are going to be owned and managed by your staff?

Thank you. So the master calendar and just trying to keep all the cats on track will be our head of staff. So home is going to make sure that we keep all of this train moving. I have asked John Davis to be the big R, the main responsible person over progress monitoring work for us, particularly as it relates to goals one, two, three, and guardrails two and three, the curriculum guardrails and the whole child guardrails. Um, and, and of course, um, Chris Mount Benitez, our deputy sup of, um, operation, uh, business services will be the, the lead over guardrails, um, four. Um, and I would like to hold myself accountable to guardrails one and five.

Um, and I was more specifically talking about our major decisions around, um, enrollment policy and, um, school portfolio.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, so that I mean, at the end of the day, it's going to be ultimately myself, we are in the process of hiring a director of a director of school planning leader who's going to help hold that work. You've heard many times we've referenced Matt Fitzsimmons back there, who is also providing support for that work. Thank you.

All righty. Seeing Oh, seeing no other questions. Thank you very much, Dr. Sue and and welcome to all the new members of the team as well. We'll move to item I one quarterly Williams report. Is there a report back for this? Okay, moving to item J. Three, I believe Commissioner Ray has an appointment.

yes thank you president kim i would like to appoint laura kennedy to the pfcac and i have informed staff that i plan to make an appointment tonight and will follow up with her name and contact information so that you can contact her i also hope that other commissioners will make appointments they need folks thanks

We are working with Chris who is putting to Chris Katrina, who is working with staff to put together a process for selection and appointments for the outstanding positions that are on our advisory council committees that have board appointments and so you will be hearing more from that. In the meantime, if folks do want to point they're welcome to. Already at this time, we will close or end open session and resume closed session. Do I have to state a time?

No need to Commission President Kim, but we will have to come back into closed session to close out.

Great. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. with quorum in the room and general counsel seated oh standing i now declare this meeting at close at 9 59 p.m